I have acquired an 85 year old Steyr rifle that was been re-barreled to 30-06 from the original 8x57. I have been instructed from individuals who are very familiar with this type of rifle not to use standard commercial ammo as the pressures are too high. So my reloading journey began there. I acquired some commercial low recoil ammo and fired four rounds in the hopes of fire forming the brass and getting some measurements. After firing and by using a bump guage, I got 2.025 at the shoulder and an overall length of the brass at 2.480. I purchased some new Starline brass and randomly measured several and got 2.027 shoulder and 2.483 length. The fired brass chambered easily and the bolt closed without effort. With the new brass, chambering was easy, but there was a some resistance when closing the bolt. My initial thought was that perhaps the chamber was on the small size. I also thought that perhaps I should proactively size the new brass to .002 under ( or equal to) the 2.025 shoulder of the fired brass. I posted this on a couple of forums and, as you can imagine, people thought I was crazy. Am I? Is my thought process way off base? I was conserned with damaging the rifle if I used brass that was too large? I’m not sure if that fear is even warranted. Any and all thoughts are appreciated.
By the way, thanks for the reloading series of videos. I also can’t wait to start using the annealer I purchased from you.
Tom
Actually, I believe you're thinking is right on. Size the brass to YOUR rifles chamber, (keep adjusting it down untill it just barely closes easily) keep the pressure down (a little research in order there) and enjoy shooting. If you keep squeezing cases down to 'official' length all you'll accomplish is short brass life.